


Not With Haste

by eternaleponine



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-14
Updated: 2013-01-14
Packaged: 2017-11-25 10:27:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/637927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eternaleponine/pseuds/eternaleponine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>I will love with urgency, but not with haste.</i> - Mumford & Sons</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not With Haste

There are things I never thought I'd have, so I never allowed myself to want them. I told myself that caring was a weakness, and for most of my life it was. I turned my heart to stone, to ice, and every time I let it thaw, it was proven to me that I shouldn't. I told myself that love is for children. Love is pain.

Then came Clint, who chipped away at the stone and melted the ice and never let it reform, not as hard or as thick. He wormed his way in and hasn't let go, no matter how hard I pushed at first. He never seemed to accept the possibility that we wouldn't be friends, partners. He was the one who decided that it was possible to be more than that without ruining what we had. I never would have made the first move, and I fought against accepting it, but when I finally gave in, when I let myself take a chance...

I won't say I never regretted it. I have, many times, when a surge of adrenaline shoots through me because he's in the line of fire and there's nothing I can do, leaving me nauseous in its wake. I regret it when he's hurt and I can't make it better, and especially when I'm not even there. I regret it when something I do endangers him in any way.

But then there's morning like then, when regret is the farthest thing from my mind. I open my eyes and see he's already awake, one eye cracked open to watch me. He smiles, and I smile back. "Good morning, _krasivaya_ ," he whispers.

 _Beautiful_. He doesn't normally call me that, because he knows it doesn't mean anything to me; I hear it all the time. But it's obvious he took the time to learn it for me, and that means a lot, even if it still makes a part of me squirm to hear that language on his lips.

" _Dobroye utro, moye serdtse_ ," I whisper back, taking refuge in the fact that he will very likely not understand, and won't ask. I nuzzle my face into the curve of his neck.

"Your nose is cold," he says.

"You're warm," I reply, burrowing against him. This is why I like keeping the room cool when we're together, but I don't tell him that. I think he chalks it up to my Russian blood.

He wraps his arms around me and his lips find mine. The kisses are slow, soft, sleepy, because neither of us really wants to be awake because that means leaving our cocoon of blankets and each other. For a little while we can pretend that this is all that exists, that we have a normal life and that no one needs to die by our hands today.

Neither of us sleeps naked; you don't know when you might be woken up or by whom. The t-shirt he wears is so old it's translucent and almost as soft as skin. Almost, but not quite, and his skin is what I want. I slide my hands under the hem and he arches into the touch. I can feel the way his muscles bunch and release, the knobs of his spine, the scars that S.H.I.E.L.D.'s best healing couldn't erase. I feel the rise and fall of his breathing, slower than mine, and I make mine match. I think we doze and wake and doze again, one of us stirring and waking the other, touching slowly, like we're not sure where we want this to go.

I wake (if I was sleeping) to his lips on my neck, warm callused hands cupping my shoulder blades, sliding down to my hips and up my ribs. It's less sex than a slow melting, happening in inches and degrees and sometimes I'm not even sure I'm not dreaming.

He peels off the tanktop I wear and rolls half on top of me. The blankets form a sort of tent over him, letting cold air in, and my nipples tighten. His lips find them, and he traces around the points with his tongue. But he doesn't linger. We go slow. There's no hurry. I take off his t-shirt and its skin on skin, and if I wasn't aroused before, I am now.

We're both wearing his boxers and I can feel him, hard against my hip as we kiss and kiss and touch, finding all of the places on each other that we know make the other melt, that untie the knots, that unravel us.

His hand rest on my hip, his thumb tracing the waistband, teasing me until I arch into the touch, growling softly and nipping at his earlobe. He laughs and his fingers slide under, between my legs and part my lips, pressing to my core but not inside. He strokes my clit, and my hips buck, my grip tightening around him each time that bright flash of pleasure shoots up my spine. He brings me to the edge but doesn't push me over, and then he stops, not taking his hand away but careful to leave me there at the brink.

Which means it's my turn, and he is heavy and hard in my hand. I would let him thrust if he wanted, but he's content to let me stroke him, the same slow pace he used with me until I can tell from the way his muscles tighten that he's holding back. I peel the boxers down his thighs and he kicks them off, then does the same for me.

The tip of his cock nudges between my legs as he pulls me closer, face to face and side by side, and I hook my leg over his. He lets his length slide over my clit, and I roll my hips, silently urging him because I know he wants to bury himself inside of me as badly as I want him to.

But his lips meet mine first, slow and sweet as before but a little more awake and a little more needy. Our tongues tangle and our bodies lock together and I breathe in as he breathes out and vice versa until we're both breathless.

We're both so close that it doesn't take long – him a little more than me which seems like it should be the opposite of true but it's almost always that way. And it's not lightning and thunder, it's not an earthquake... more like a tidal wave that's been building since we woke (or didn't quite) I don't know how long ago.

It crashes through me and I cling to him so the undertow doesn't drag me out to sea. I feel it when he comes and I hold him tight still, and we're crushing each other and I'm choking on tears that come out of nowhere.

He kisses them away, soothes me back down, holds me until I can breathe again and even after. His fingers comb through my hair and when I look up at him I know. I hope he knows too.

I kiss him again, soft slow sleepy, and he kisses back and shifts so that I can sleep on his shoulder, my arm draped over his chest, my hand on his heart because I guess it's my turn this time.

And that's how we stay until we wake again and force ourselves the face the day.


End file.
